Desde La Bahia

Latin Beat Magazine, April, 2001 by Jesse "Chuy" Varela

SAN FRANCISCO

PAULITO!!! La Perculación de La Habana rang the chorus as Paulito F.G. (Fernández-Gallo) sang improvised verses about the percolation of his Caribbean hometown Havana to close out two sweaty and exhausting sets of bonafide Cuban timba on Friday, Feb. 9 at Kimball's Carnival at Jack London Square in Oakland. The arrival of Paulito y Su Elite for a three-night stay was a big deal that not even the heavy rains that drenched the Bay Area that weekend could damper. And understandably so, as this gifted performer teased and tantalized "las chicas" with his sensual gyrations, and impressed everyone with charm and superb musicality. A tall, lanky boy-next-door type with Ben Franklin-rimmed glasses, Paulito was accompanied by a 13-piece ensemble of young twentysomethings that raved through lengthy songs from his last two albums, that unfortunately are unavailable in the U.S.

Fernández-Gallo possesses a strong clear voice full of range and elasticity and a Havana street drawl and timbre reminiscent of a jazz alto saxophone. The show highlights timba, a new Cuban salsa he and others innovated in the 1990s, fusing traditional Cuban son with funk and jazz. It is a heavy swing that had some confused couples trying to partner dance, as savvy Cubaphiles surrounded the stage to collectively groove.

Like Afro-Cuban aerobics instructors, F.G. had the crowd with hands in the air clapping, shaking, and singing as he paced the stage like a tiger. Verse after verse he never let the energy drop as firmly attacked horn lines pushed him. The rhythm section of trap drums, timbales and congas pumped with sophisticated interplay.

Most of F.G.'s themes were about romance and friendship as he shared Una Vez Mas Por Amor, his latest single burning the Havana airwaves of Radio Rebelde, and a traditional son montuno-style tune he wrote called Para Mis Amigos. With over one-hour long sets, the production of his music was topnotch with open sections where he brought the dynamic of the band down and just vamped, improvising stanzas with a soulful delivery. A true original who moves like a break dancer on rumba and sings like a boyish-Benny Moré, Paulito F.G. invited Bay Area-resident Carlos Caro to sit in on bongó for a reunion of two old friends who grew up together with the band Opus 13 in Havana. All night the sound system lacked definition but F.G. charged on with La Ultima Bala (The Last Bullet) and the closer, De La Habana. The Cubanization of Kimball's Carnival began with one of the island nation's best.

CANTO PARA UNA SEMILLA. The renowned Chilean poet Pablo Neruda called Violeta Parra "la santa de greda pura" -the saint of pure clay. In her 60 years, the celebrated singer-songwriter managed to document and rescue the folkloric culture of her South American nation as well as to write beautifully prolific songs articulating the condition and situation of its people. Little did she know how her songs would fall silent during a grueling murderous military regime four years after her death in 1967.

"I was 14 years old when the 'golpe' (military coup) took place," says Bay Area folksinger Lichi Fuentes. "I had heard the songs of Violeta Parra and Victor Jara growing up, but it wasn't until after they killed Victor that their music took on deeper meaning. From then on she no longer existed. So we gravitated toward their music as a symbol of hope and inspiration. They gave their lives for an ideal which I feel responsible to keep alive."

To that end, Lichi Fuentes and the La Peña Community Chorus hosted a rare performance of the cantata -Canto Para Una Semilla- on Friday, March 9 in a benefit for CAS, the Communication Arts & Sciences program at Berkeley High School for a trip they're making this April to Cuba. Written in the early 1970s by Chilean composer Luis Advis, the cantata tells the story of Violeta Parra, fusing music and poetry that draws from a series of autobiographical "decimas" (songs that use ten-line verses in rhyme) that she wrote about herself. Because of the military coup, the homage has received very little exposure and is not widely known in or out of Chile.

"Es una belleza (it's beautiful)," adds Fuentes, who for the last 8 years has led the chorus. "In 1999, the La Peña Chorus and I went to Chile to my hometown of San Fernando, outside of Santiago, and to the north to Quique where we met with La Fundación Victor Jara and other human rights organizations. When we got back I realized how little people knew about Violeta aside from Gracias a la Vida and a couple of other songs. She was a remarkable woman."

So Fuentes proposed to the almost 21 year-old community chorus the idea of honoring Violeta Parra for this International Women's Day by performing Canto Para Una Semilla. The program will be divided into two-sections: a slide show with a narration about her life with Fuentes performing her better known songs, and the almost-hour long cantata which Fuentes had to re-adapt for the vocal ensemble from the original, written for six male voices plus one female voice.